Tag Archives: Unilever

I keep hearing people say that advertising doesn’t drive demand for certain, mostly highly processed food products. They claim that everyone has the freedom to choose. That no one is holding a gun to their head to eat Twinkees or Doritos.

Granted, most of the people I’m hearing this from are defending a position in today’s industrial food system that will likely be negatively impacted if status quo shifts, which partially explains the defensive reactions.

In fairness to them, and to make sure that everything I learned in business school and nearly 20 years of marketing, I found data to help people better understand the massive role advertising plays in building demand. Consider the following information from AdvertisingAge’s Marketer Tree 2009 survey (2008 data), which includes the more popular brands these dollars are supporting.

Looking at this list and considering the incredibly sophisticated advertising and marketing methodologies being employed by these companies and their respective ad agencies, are there still questions regarding the huge influence this has on “choice?”

Yes, people have free wills and Constitutional freedoms, but we’re also highly susceptible to outside influences, e.g., >$15.o billion spent by these companies to build profitable demand for products (see Billion Dollar Club below for list of Top 100 food companies).

Rob Smart is a food entrepreneur focusing on regional food systems and consumer retail experiences. He blogs on alternative food systems at Every Kitchen Table and Civil Eats (guest blogger), and micro-blogs on Twitter as Jambutter.